Mischief Managed
by aknightofni
Summary: AUSirius raised Harry, the eager, loving, yet troublefinding boywholived. Random chapters from Harry's life growing up with his godfather & their resulting relationship nonromantic. Ch2 Let Me Introduce You To Love
1. Curiosity in Knockturn

Mischief Managed

Rating: T

Random AU clips. Sirius raises Harry.

Although these are so far disconnected, I may, in the future sometime, decide to make something more of them.

Disclaimer: Don't own.

(focuses on Sirius and Harry's relationship- no romance there, just godfather, godson.)

I-Curiosity in Knockturn (begins during the summer before second year)

As Harry glanced over his shoulder, he happened to spot someone outside that he clearly recognized, yet with much distaste. Peering very discreetly over a window display of a leather bound text and a quill floating above it (there was a bright sign that screamed at shoppers, _Stop here before Hogwarts!)_, he could see them clearly. There were the Malfoys (Draco and Lucius), both with incriminating smirks upon their faces, as was their custom, and there, where they had just disappeared into, was Knockturn Alley.

He had heard all about Knockturn Alley, of the legends and lore surrounding it. In fact, he had heard so many stories from other wizard children of what went on inside of it that he was unsure as to which were credible. Some said there was an exchange business of foul and illegal potions. Other said Grindewald's still-loyal followers oozed from the cracks. One story Harry had heard, although this one he discredited immediately, entailed a rather villainous, ancient warlock that castrated curious wizards for his powerful brews.

Well, it was a curious enough attraction. Adults would say to their children 'never go there' but give no reason. Sirius had been firm in this action. _Never go there, Harry. Ever. _Harry would swear that was the most vague explanation anyone had ever given anything in his entire life.

Whether it were dangerous tales to strike the imaginative fancy, or supportless admonitions to beware, Knockturn was, no exceptions, forbidden.

Then, why were the Malfoys entering Knockturn Alley? If only the worst of folk went there, then why were they so stealthily stealing onto its streets?

Now Harry was not sensible, as someone like Hermione might have been in that situation, and he certainly was not afraid, as other wizard boys of his age might be. These missing traits led to the creation of his specialty- mischief.

Glancing at Sirius, who was in the midst of flipping through Harry's new books with dislike, tempted to scratch out all of Lockhart's pompous, curly signatures off the inside covers, he knew that now was his chance if he were to follow the two Malfoys. Sweeping out of the shop as quickly as he possibly could, he followed them into the foul, shadow-filled alley of Knockturn.

Dusty shop windows glared down at him like unappeased, savage gods. The stench was unbearable, the immediate thing Harry noticed when attempting to breath in the musty air. It smelled like one leaving old meat to rot on a doorstep, after even the flies have finished with it. And who could have thought the summer to be so foggy and cold!

Most appalling, even above the stale darkness, was the people. Everyone on that street spoke rarely, perhaps in hushed whispers, and when they did speak it was in very few words. And it was sorrowful! The way the hid! Perhaps if the light touched them they would have melted into the grimy sewage that littered the streets!

"You little boy!" a woman shrouded in a black, lacy veil cackled hoarsely. Her nose protruded out past her face in a hag-like manner and her brow was stitched as one mass of evil expression, like a thundercloud. "Some thumbs? Some toes for the little boy, perhaps?"  
"N-No thank you," replied Harry quickly. In his haste to escape from her image, he tripped over his shoes and fell against the shop door, which, to his relief, gave a great advantage to eavesdropping.

The two Malfoys had entered this polluted shop. He could see them in the window, hear them very minimally speaking in hushed tones about items that they wished to sell back there. This puzzled the boy. What could the Malfoy's have possibly had that this hell-hole of a store would want to buy? Then he heard the phrases "Ministry raids" and "objects create false suspicions..." Every few moments, to Harry's delight, Draco received a slap on the wrist for touching valuable objects in the store and interrupting with trivial matters.

There was suddenly talk about Harry himself, Draco's obvious jealousy. "Potter's got a 2000…what does that say about me when Potter's got a Nimbus 2000 and I've only got a Cleansweep?" This gave a swell of joy in the boy's heart, even more so when Lucius proceeded to shove him a bit with, "Draco, I'll beat you with a Nimbus if you say one more word about it-"

Hearing something scurrying in the corner he was now reduced to hiding in (as Draco and Lucius left the storefront), he quickly emerged onto the street with the crowd, who eyed him with dark looks. They all still stood under overhangs, in ditches, inside hoods. Although they seemed gloomy and separated, they gave Harry an eerie feeling that they were banding together to…to… stalk him. Like prey.

The feeling became so strong that the boy began to pick up his pace, walk quicker, all the while glancing over his shoulder with a feeling of disquiet. He began to move so fast that he was running…running and running until-

BAM.

Harry was kneeling on the ground, rubbing his scar and scrounging the ground for his glasses. Everything was blurry. His heart was pounding with a sickening rhythm as a hand reached for him and grasped him around his neck. He was reduced to screaming and kicking, but to no avail. As he fought to set himself free, the only thought that flickered into his mind was _Don't castrate me! Please don't put me into your evening brew!_

"Petrificus totalus!" a voice called sharply.

Harry fell to his knees as the old woman froze in her standing position. He glanced up into Sirius's eyes and felt them sear like embers. He had to look back down.

Staring down at the now limp figure, Sirius bit his lip, sheer distaste figuring into his features. Giving the body a slight kick with his left foot, he grabbed Harry by the elbow and shouted 'Enervate!' As the body regained its consciousness, the two were already heading out of the alley and down the lane toward Diagon. They could hear the crowd far back behind them whispering and pointing. This stopped Harry and caused him to become very distracted, but Sirius did not stop. Something strong, perhaps ancient from a deep past, forced him to not even look back, Harry at his side.

They grew quiet, Sirius refraining from any sort of outburst as if their lives were in some sort of…danger. Wrenching him harder by the arm, the two passed a tiny, dusty shop with an array of bones and bubbling cauldrons in the window. When Harry had shot them a questioning look, only then did Sirius open his mouth, in a whisper. "A draught of death…The deadliest potions ever brewed, I'll suppose."

Window after window prevailed just as ugly, and by now Harry had a clear view. Sirius had slowed their pace and seemed to be just as cautious, if more. He seemed to be, was it lost? Coming up to a shop door, he still had the boy by the shoulder, he knocked three times, taking care to wipe the grime onto the inner pocket of his robes afterward. A small, grungy horse stood outside of the door, stamping its hooves and neighing ridiculously loud. It was tethered very loosely and was attempting to claw free by running in a circle every few moments.

Sirius knocked once more and he could see a little old man limping his way over to the counter. The horse neighed again and Sirius turned to it bitterly, "If I had a horse whip."

"I thought you liked animals," pointed out Harry.

Here Sirius laid one more blow of his sarcasm. "It wouldn't be for the horse." Now Sirius Black was not a calm person, nor was he rational, level-headed, or, well the picture is clear enough. The fact that perhaps his sarcasm struck a nerve or two in the boy's angry side never touched him. This was a great disadvantage in communicating, well, anything at all to the boy. Every word of reproach he ever said seemed jargled enough to sound like a punch line to a missing joke, simply out of context.

The little old storekeeper shook his head at opening the door and pointed to a 'closed' sign. As they were refused inside, Harry rolled his eyes and could not restrain from mimicking in a higher voice 'it wouldn't be for the horse!' and adding 'go to hell!'.

"What did you say?" shot back Sirius, abruptly ending his conversation through the glass with the store owner, who, by whatever principle, would not unlock the door. He turned on his feet to face the boy, who was consequently petrified to the point of dumb silence. "Exactly what I thought you said." He stood there on the foggy street and glared him straight in the eyes.

Harry swallowed. He knew he was in for it this time. Luckily for the boy, however, Sirius delayed his reproach until later and faced the true problem at hand- finding a floo system. "Hang on, I've got an idea…" Taking out his wand he quietly cut loose the rope that tethered the animal to the post. As it neighed in a frantic hurry and tossed its head, the storekeeper darted out of his dingy shop on his scrawny, elderly legs, shaking his fist at it to return.

"Run. Now." And here Sirius took him by the wrist and the two sneaked their guilty selves inside of the store and through the floo system.

"Honest," begged Harry as they each took a handful of the powder. "I'll never go back there again!"

With a drop of the powder and a serious tone, Sirius replied, almost gently, "I know, kid. I know."

When the shop owner returned, breathing deeply with exhaustion while feebly attempting to flog his horse, he somehow let their absence slip by unnoticed.

...  
((End of this one...more to come!  
Please review. Input Critisism welcome (wow, im sorry, the one word I've just randomly never been able to spell correctly...) I'd like to think of this whole writing thing as a learning experience (a fun one...) Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this. Happy Easter!))


	2. Let Me Introduce You To Love

Rating: T, more so than the last chapter.

Thank you for reviewing! I really appreciate it!

Thank you for reminding me, I forgot to mention this. Sirius raises Harry _instead_ of going to Azkaban (yeah, that's probably a big point I should have made... cheesy grin), but now you know. This also made me realize that background information is probably necessary (you know when stuff makes sense to you and only you? Yeah, I had one of those moments). So in a later chapter, you'll probably see some explanations.

Like I said, all of these stories are pretty much unrelated, you can have one without the other, but if you liked the last one and would like to hear more of it (or more of any of these chapters), I could whip up a sequel chapter.

Well, this isn't MY life story, it's HARRY'S…so, I'm gonna stop talking now :D

This next one is (Harry's a bit younger in this and it's a bit odd):

**II- Let Me Introduce You to Love**

A loud sigh.

"Harry, what's wrong?" What could possibly be wrong with a healthy six year old boy in a clean park on a nice summer's day? There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and no troubles that Sirius could conclude to cause the gloomy look upon his godson's face.

Another loud sigh, this time longer.  
"Why don't you go play with the other boys?" asked Sirius gently. "Look, they're over by that tree."

"I can't Sirius!" And the boy said this very firmly, shaking his head very quickly from side to side to emphasize his answer. "There's a girl there."

"So?" Sirius let a faint smile slip to his face. The naivety of childhood. How that opinion would change in ten years! "Why can't you play with them all?"  
"She won't let me," and Harry folded his arms tightly across his chest, a disgruntled 'hmph!' echoing from his lips. "I told her to leave and she made _me_ leave!"

"Did she now!" and Sirius said this in pretended amazement. "Why did you let her make you leave?"

The boy's nose twitched. "She said she'd slug me."

The man raised a brow and replied, in the same feigned surprise, "You're not going to run away, are you? They're your friends as much as hers."

"I'll kick her!" concluded Harry.

"No…" Sirius shook his head. "Let's try the non-violent approach to this. You say 'I don't care. I'm staying.' She's probably bluffing. If she tries to pop you in the nose, well, come back to me. I'll find her mum."

Harry took this advice with confidence, and thrusting his little nose up into the air, he bounded in a fast run toward the tree under which his comrades and the enemy were playing; only, he didn't see the enemy.

His heart sang with delight at this and he joined his friends in their game.

"We're knights," one said brightly, leaning against the tree trunk with ease. "Charlie's a dragon. You can be a knight too!"

"Not so fast!" came a voice from a branch above them. "_I _am the queen and _I_ say he can't play."

"Why not?" challenged Harry bravely. "Why can't I play?"

"Because I say so!" and she slid down the trunk with as little grace as possible, landing on her palms. "And _I'm_ the queen!"

"Aw," argued Charlie. "Can't we let him play just this once?"

"No!" the little girl stamped her foot. "Do you want your head cut off?" Here, she shook her little queenly fist at him.

"Then I'm food for the dragon!" Here, Harry fell to the ground, and Charlie pretended to eat him ravenously. The boy's strange, creature-like behavior set him up to be a great politician later in his life.

Tom, the first boy who had spoken when Harry had approached them, brandished a stick and charged at Charlie. "Let the boy go, Dragon! ARGH!"

The boys began to have so much fun together that they forgot the girl, Elisabeth, was there waiting. This caused Elisabeth great pain in her royal feelings and she sat down underneath the great bows of the tree and cried. She had lost the battle.

Harry, sensing her vulnerability, turned to her and replied, "I'm the king now and I don't need a queen." The girl turned, hid her eyes, and dashed away. It was harsh, but, Harry found himself thinking it was fitting.

"Greg! Greg!" A woman's voice called across the little field. "It's time to leave!" The little boy who was the next planned feast for the ruthless dragon waved goodbye and left.

The sun was going down fast above the trees, and Harry, who currently now sat in Elisabeth's tree, was called home next. Trotting alongside Sirius on the little trail to home at a quick and lively pace, the man asked, "How did it go? I see you're smiling."

"I just played and she got mad and then I told her to go away again," Harry answered smugly, despite the fact that his little summary had made no sense to Sirius whatsoever. "Girls really are stupid."

"Harry," reproached the man very mildly, yet with amusement. "I don't think so."

"Well, why not?" asked the boy. "All they do is cry and yell."  
_Nice observation, _Sirius thought sarcastically. "Well, I once knew this girl Jessica-" Suddenly Sirius paused. _Or was it Brenda? No, it couldn't have been. Brenda was the one with the skull and crossbones tattoo, and Jessica was the one who had that job at the bookshop- _"Well, the point is, she was very smart. Went to Oxford."

"Wow," responded Harry, completely unaware of the fact that Sirius was mentally scolding himself.

_Do I sleep with that many girls that I can't remember their names? What kind of an example is that for Harry when he gets older?_

"Can we come back tomorrow?" the boy asked eagerly. "Everyone else is."

Sirius gave a bright, but distracted smile, "Of course, kid." _Come to think of it, the one who went to Oxford was Sarah._

There she was again, seated under the tree, picking dainty flowers. She was no longer tearful, but had an expression of bliss upon her little mouth. When she saw Harry approach the tree, she stood to her feet. The whole band of his friends was behind him, running loosely around while becoming elephants and lions. Harry gave a great roar and stopped abruptly in front of his little crowd.

"Harry," said Charlie brightly, "I'd like some ice cream. Can we go get some ice cream?"

"You mean, hunters!" Harry winked slightly, seating himself in the shade. "I want some too."

"Hmph!" came the high, squeaky voice.

The four boys turned to find her there, stiff and ruffled by their presence.

"What are you still doing here?" asked Harry huffily.

"Yeah," added Greg. "We told you to get lost." Harry responded to Greg by stomping on the flowers that Elisabeth had picked. It was cruel, and he knew it, but Elisabeth had been saying cruel things to him for several days by now. Didn't she deserve it?

This was too much for the girl. Taking in a huge breath, she leaked tears and sprung at him. Soon they were rolling down the little hill toward the path. Charlie, Tom and Greg stood at the top, watching them with amazement. It was not a violent brawl at all, in fact, after a while, the two ceased their pillow-like blows upon each other and just, well, rolled.

"Elisabeth!" shouted a voice very worriedly and the next thing Harry knew, he had just been thrown out of the fight and onto the ground and was being screamed at by a woman he'd never seen before in his life.

"Momma, stop it!" begged Elisabeth.

"I ought to-!" The woman raised her hand to strike him, but found that her wrist was caught midair.

"Excuse me!" stated Sirius very sharply. "What the hell are you-"

"This little brat just attacked my daughter!" She was a stringy old hag, with dark, grisly hair and a nose that crooked its way around her face like a snake. Her pallid complexion and terrifyingly hard eyes reminded Sirius somewhat of his own mother. He'd be especially damned if he'd let his own mother strike Harry.

"Why don't we solve this problem the civilized way that people handle problems, by talking this over?" Sirius was speaking through clenched teeth by now. This woman was irrational. Controlling himself as best as possible, he led her across the little dirt path to a bench.

"Now, you little rogue," the woman said to Harry. "If you so much as touch my daughter- I wish I had a good sized switch-"

"I believe this is my jurisdiction," interrupted Sirius. "He's not _your_ son and I don't need your input on how he's to be raised. Harry, Elisabeth, is it? Why don't you two sit down over there quietly while we talk this over?"

Harry and Elisabeth glared daggers, as two children should never have to, and sat across from each other on the side of the hill across the path, the one they had rolled down in their passion. Neither were injured other than in their feelings. Well, except for one nasty cut on Harry's arm where he had come down on a thorn.

When Elisabeth noticed the boy rubbing his arm profusely, she was the first to speak. "I-I'm sorry for hitting you." She was genuine.

"Me too," Harry answered quietly, but true. "For hitting you. You know, you hit good for a girl."

"Oh?" Elisabeth replied, her eyes tracing him with a frown. "Thank you. You hit good for a boy. I'm sorry for not letting you play with us."

"Me too," repeated the boy. "For not letting you play."

There was an awkward silence between the two, yet necessary. The two enemies had become friends.

"I like you Elisabeth," said Harry, although both of them were too young to realize that the reason they fought in the first place was because of that.

"I like you two, Harry," and she took his hand. Standing to their feet, they approached the two bickering adults on the bench.

Sirius found this as his cue to cut the woman off again, and standing to his feet, he muttered a curse under his breath at her and said, "Harry, we're leaving."

"Can we get ice cream?" asked the boy.

"How about a good spanking?" replied the woman and Sirius clenched his fists. "Come Elisabeth, we're leaving too. Wouldn't want that little dress of yours to get anymore ruined by this filth." Here she glared at the boy and his godfather.

"Can I come back tomorrow?" she begged.

"No, no, no, no, no! Most certainly not! You will never see him again, don't worry!" The woman threw her nose up into the air and started to lead the girl away by the shoulder.

"Wait!" called Harry, and with her hand still in his, he pecked her a kiss on the cheek.

This outraged the mother even more than she already had been and if it had not been for Sirius's interference again, she would have struck the boy on the spot. At this, she left.

Sirius and Harry were alone again, standing by the park bench, and Harry gave another long sigh. "Sirius, are you mad at me?" There were tears welling in his eyes.

"Of course not," and the man straightened his collar with a proud air. "You've learned a valuable lesson today all by yourself."

The boy cried and rubbed his eyes. "Never fall in love?"

At this, Sirius had to choke to hide his laughter, "Oh, there will be others, kid, there were be others. Don't you worry."

"Sirius?"

"Hm?"  
The boy wiped away his tears. "Can we get ice cream?"

The man broke into a broad grin and replied, "Yes." _I wish _I_ could get over love that fast._

((I hope you enjoyed this! I have never really written something with Harry interacting with other children, especially muggle children, before. Feedback is wanted. Please review!))


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